Sony’s financial report has been published, and despite a rise in sales, the company has posted a net loss of 128.4 billion yen (-$1.26bn/£746m).

This is despite sales for the company seeing a 14.3% increase on last year that was ”primarily due to the favourable impact of foreign exchange rates, the launch of the PlayStation 4 as well as a significant increase in sales of smartphones.”

The loss however has been put down to restructuring which included Sony selling their PC business and selling some of its headquarters.

The losses are expected to continue into the next financial year, with Sony predicting a loss of around 50 billion yen (-$487m/£290m) this time next year, with hopes that the restructuring will be complete.

The PlayStation was a strong performer this year. Sony, which groups their consoles together, sold 14.6 million units of the PS3 and PS4, which is a drop from the 16.5 million sales for PlayStation last year, however they did include the PlayStation 2 then.

Sales for the company’s handheld consoles: the PS Vita, Vita TV and PSP did however see a drop from the 7 million of last year down to 4.1 million this year.

Overall, sales figures rose in the gaming section by 38.5% compared to last year. Sadly, this impressive increase could not stop the gaming section posting an operating loss of 8.1 billion yen (£47m/$79m).

Sony said the drop from the 1.7 billion yen (£9.9m/$16.6m) income of last year was down in part to the increased cost in launching the PS4, however the major factor was the write off some of the titles sold by Sony Online Entertainment, which cost 6.2 billion yen (£36m/$61m).

Sony is expecting a rise in sales for next year, forecasting a sales figure of around 17 million for the home consoles; however it is expecting another dip in sales for its handhelds, this time down to 3.5 million.

Software sales are also expected to rise from 374 million units to 390 million.

Affiliate information

This blog is part of the Amazon Associates program, meaning that we will get a small commission for products you purchase by following our links to Amazon.com products. This does NOT mean that you pay more than you would if you went to the same product page on Amazon by yourself.